David Thoreau and the Doctrine of Disobedience - Essay Example

A Right to Resist: Thoreau and the Doctrine of Disobedience There is a fine point of distinction to be made in Henry David Thoreau’s influential treatise on the individual’s moral duty and relationship with the state. The doctrine that Thoreau espoused, which Mohandas Gandhi said “contained the essence of his political philosophy,” is today famously known as “Civil Disobedience” (Herr 1974). However, Thoreau did not regard his subject precisely as such. The questions that emerged from Thoreau’s famous night in jail resulted in an essay originally entitled “Resistance to Civil Government,” which probably more accurately describes his position and the course of action he adopted in response to what he considered the depredations of the U.S. government. Thoreau expressly refused to pay taxes to the state of Massachusetts as a form of resistance to the federal government’s tacit support of slavery and its expansionist war against Mexico. However, it is generally forgotten that Thoreau specifically consented to the right of Massachusetts to assess and collect taxes, provided that those monies were to be used for just and moral ends. In his article “Thoreau: A Civil Disobedient?,” W.A. Herr contends that the term “civil disobedience” has been used to describe a broad range of socio-political activities, ranging from revolutions to hunger strikes, an expansive perspective on what was for Thoreau a simple matter of refusing to comply with immoral government policies (1974). As the concept exists today, civil disobedience evokes images of widespread, organized initiatives aimed at forcing profound political change. Herr notes that there is no available evidence that Thoreau ever actually used the term “civil disobedience”, at least not in his writings. In his famous essay, Thoreau ponders a matter of individual conscience; his is not a “call to arms,” nor is it a manifesto, as some have claimed. Nevertheless, Thoreau is in earnest when he describes his personal notions of activism. It takes courage and is not without consequences. “Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations…it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in (the individual) from the divine” (Thoreau 2010). Published in 1849, “Civil Disobedience” is Thoreau’s reaction to an America that he believed had failed to live up to the constitutional promise of equality and justice. The burden of labor in the South was shouldered by enslaved human beings; in the North, wealthy industrialists and factory owners held exploited workers in a state of thralldom that approximated slavery. America was brutally enforcing the doctrine of manifest destiny in the West, while using its military power to wrest vast territories from Mexico. Thoreau wrote that this ran counter to the true business of government, which is to uphold civil rights, to protect the populace and provide opportunities for people to live the good life. Citizens of conscience should counter the policies of governments, which do more harm than good. His key point is that the individual is every bit as justified to act as government, that the only true obligation of the citizen is to follow the dictates of his conscience. Thoreau could not countenance obeying a government that supported the institution of slavery. As such, the government could have “no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it” (Thoreau 2008). The evolution of government to a more enlightened version, such as democracy, is profoundly a matter of preserving individual rights, he argues. As such, the citizen is compelled to exercise one’s rights by refusing to support the betrayal of the natural contract between the individual and government. Much of what one reads in “Civil Disobedience” sounds quite familiar, particularly to a native American. In fact, it is easy to make the point that Thoreau reminds us of the dual responsibilities of government and governed, as outlined in the nation’s founding documents. There is also the spirit of Montesquieu, John Locke and Thomas Paine, products and inheritors of the Enlightenment, whose writings inspired the Declaration of Independence and its assertion of universal equality, and the particularly American concept of representative government, with its promise of mutual moral responsibility. These are lofty ideals, some would say the most scrupulous ever espoused. Thoreau makes a very interesting point of degree, arguing that by comparison, the U.S. Constitution and the government it makes possible is impressive, but from the standpoint of individual conscience it comes up well short of its own credo. “Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good…but seen from a higher (view) still, and the highest, who shall say what they are or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all” (Thoreau, 2008). Indeed, Thoreau contends that no government, no matter how high-minded and idealistic, can achieve the promise of its own ideals. Thus, the “machinery” of the intrinsically flawed concept of government runs counter to the philosophy of the great thinkers who put forth the ethos upon which modern democracy is based. Thoreau, however, argues that even democracy is no panacea for that which cannot be justified under any form of government. Yet Thoreau tells us that government itself does not concern him, and that having identified government as, first and foremost, an instrument of corruption and immorality, he wastes no time trying to argue its relative lack of worth. The depth of Thoreau’s anti-government feeling has, perhaps, been overlooked, particularly by those who have invoked his writings in their own forms of resistance, such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. For Thoreau, resistance to governmental tyranny, to enforced misrepresentation, was an active matter, not a call to passive disobedience, effective though that tactic proved for Gandhi and King. A government that was capable of being complicit in slavery was a government that had compromised its own right to exist. Thoreau expressed the vehemence of this belief in his defense of the abolitionist activist John Brown, who favored the use of violence in opposing slavery. “It was (Brown’s) peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to secure the slave….I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the slave” (Thoreau 2008). In “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau concedes that non-violent resistance is preferable, where it is possible and practicable. He cites as an example the Massachusetts tax collector, whom Thoreau tried to convince to resign his position. Revolution, Thoreau argues, can thus be accomplished through the medium of persuasion, by appealing to an individual’s conscience. However, more extreme measures are justified when rhetoric fails. “Suppose,” he posits, “blood should flow. Is there not a sort of bloodshed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death” (Thoreau 2008). It seems incongruous to imagine the author of Walden promoting the use of lethal force in the achievement of any end, but Thoreau was making a deeply philosophical point, one that America’s founders built into the nation’s constitutional framework; namely, that citizens have the right to rise against a government that oversteps moral and legal restraints on its power. For Thoreau, an assault upon his conscience was as dire as physical actions that infringed on his civil rights. As the United States entered the new millennium, the internecine threats to national unity and liberty faced by those of Thoreau’s time had largely receded from memory. Even the explosive civil unrest of the 20th century is, to a considerable extent, a thing of the past. Thoreau’s words continue to offer a valid commentary on contemporary affairs, though the tenor of his message has shifted along with the evolution of the nation and the world. Americans, Western Europeans and people in many other parts of the globe today face a disparity in wealth and resource distribution the likes of which haven’t been seen in hundreds of years. As we consider Thoreau’s message in the present, it is important to remember that when he wrote about tyranny, his comments were not restricted to the depredations of governments. Today, millions are oppressed by an economic tyranny as morally culpable as the exploitative governmental model Thoreau put forth more than 160 years ago. His criticism of the rapacious business interests that are shielded and nurtured by government speaks to us today in the form of the Enron scandal, the housing bubble, Bernie Madoff’s predations and the inequitable protections afforded the super rich under numerous presidential administrations. The fact that countless people have been directly affected by these and other transgressions makes Thoreau’s warnings relatable today. Where the wealthy are concerned, “the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him…Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet” (Thoreau 2008). Thoreau’s comments reverberate powerfully today in the sense that wealth and power compromise the individual’s sense of vulnerability and personal moral accountability. Thoreau commends a poor person’s perspective that could do much to alter the current “get-rich-at-all-costs” ethos. “The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor” (Thoreau 2008). It is noteworthy that Thoreau uses the term “culture” in expressing this thought. This is much more than a technical comment on unfair wage and price structures; this is Thoreau’s philosophical take on the moral debasement that occurs when powerful financial interests operate without sufficient control. It describes a crisis of values, in which material gain and the accumulation of wealth predominate within the culture itself. Thus, the values of the super wealthy become the values of the nation – not only do all aspire to wealth and power, they tacitly consent to an environment in which “all’s fair,” where even the use of illegal means to attain wealth is justified. As such, the only “crime” is the crime of getting caught. Thus, Thoreau employs a multi-dimensional approach in his criticism of the edifice of government. Its moral transgressions, which are funded by the continued taxation of its citizenry, provide the means by which oppression and violence are furthered, but the wealthy and financially powerful are likewise responsible. Together, they further a cynical culture of acquisitiveness in which citizens are encouraged to mirror the worst behaviors of the wealthy and powerful. The great danger in this phenomenon, which is all too prevalent, is that the moral barometer with which humans beings are endowed becomes perverted by a warped value system that encourages people to equivocate in matters of conscience. For Thoreau, conscience was no restraint on violent action in the defense of civil liberties and resistance to tyranny. This otherwise noble turn of character has at times been taken for an anarchic attitude to the very concept of governmental authority. This is an easy conclusion to arrive at given the thrust of Thoreau’s writings, his actions in support of a man such as John Brown and his refusal to pay taxes. And yet, it is a premature and superficial assertion to make, and indicates an incomplete understanding of Thoreau’s position in “Civil Disobedience.” He does indeed identify the state as the source of, rather than the solution for, problems, and he calls for active resistance to a state that has abrogated its moral superiority. But rather than outright anarchy, what Thoreau posits is a government whose actions are commensurate with its moral responsibility and its duty to the populace it purports to lead. This, he writes, is no less weighty a matter than the sacrosanct rights of man, which have always been a cornerstone of the world’s leading Republic. “There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived and treats him accordingly” (Thoreau 2008). But does Thoreau overstep himself in supporting violent action? Can violence – for instance, in John Browns’ case – ever be justified, even in a good and just cause? For Thoreau, adopting a passive stance in the face of injustice is the same as being a party to evil. Thoreau’s support of extremism on the part of the abolitionists would seem to justify the actions of a man who took the law into his own hands, with Thoreau assuming “that all of Brown’s actions were justified because he was an inspired reformer with a sacred vocation” (Furtak 2009). The question of whether violence in the service of political ends, even morally desirable ones, can ever be accepted on its own terms is one that has plagued courts of law for centuries. The uncompromising ethical stance that Thoreau adopts in “Civil Disobedience” remains with us in the present, encouraging the further consideration of the “governed-government” relationship, which presents new challenges in new and different guises. High-tech surveillance has become a highly charged issue in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and passage of the Patriot Act, which has been accompanied by outrage over perceived encroachments on the popular right to privacy. More recently, the Internet has become a moral and legal battleground, with the uproar over WikiLeaks forcing the reconsideration of laws that range from First Amendment rights to anti-espionage legislation arising from a law that dates to World War I. The ongoing challenge lies in the judicious and considered application of the principles of resistance, as described by Thoreau in “Civil Disobedience.” Ultimately, Thoreau’s charge is one of civic participation. As has been mentioned, his modus operandi is active and vigorous resistance to immoral and tyrannical governance. This, according to the founders of America itself, is a naturally endowed right. According to Thoreau, it is nothing less than the citizen’s bounden duty. Works Cited Furtak, Rick Anthony. “Henry David Thoreau.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 30 June 2005. Web. http://plato.stanford.edu. Herr, William A. “Thoreau: A Civil Disobedient?” Ethics. University of Chicago Press, 1974. Print. Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience. Forgotten Books, 2008, pp. 14, 23, 26. Print. Thoreau, Henry David. A Plea for Captain John Brown. Forgotten Books, 2008, p. 21. Print. Read More